I’m celebrating a big birthday today… 40!
Hard to believe since it feels like my 30th was yesterday. I had a huge party for it but of course that wasn’t really in the cards for this year. And honestly? I don’t know if it’s what I would’ve wanted anyway. Even pre-a year of quarantine my tolerance for large gatherings was waning and so I decided to just do a series of smaller things (on the actual day, a friend is coming over and we’re doing a nineties-esque slumber party with pizza and Spice World… which I had to buy on eBay for $17.99 because it’s not streaming ANYWHERE… but I’m digressing now).
In thinking of ways to celebrate, I had thought it would be a nice idea to have professional photos taken, but that never really panned out. However, I wanted to commemorate the occasion with a photo somehow and thus my adult cake smash photoshoot was born! (If you don’t know what a cake smash photoshoot is, it’s mostly done for one year olds – you give them a cake and let them go to town; they get covered in cake.)
My photoshoot was going to be the adult version, but I also wanted to call back to the little kid whimsy of it, and so I found a couple of accessories to support that idea. The ultimate goal was to completely DIY it, which I did (albeit with store-bought items). I decided against making my outfit as I didn’t want to put a ton of effort into making something I could potentially ruin by getting cake all over it, so it was cheap skirt from Amazon to the rescue! I even went so far as to make the cake myself (I’m really picky about cake, so I wanted to make sure it was one I wanted to eat).
I set up the backdrop in my living room and decorated with all my loot. The set up looked like this:
I did all this on a Sunday afternoon, battling against the good light in my living room. I donned a tutu skirt and paired it with a “Vintage 1981” t-shirt. Finding the shirt was a challenge. I looked at a ton of them before finally landing on the one I bought, and I fully intend to wear that shirt again to the sleepover this evening!
When it was time to take the pictures, I had to time it out right. I didn’t want to immediately start smashing the cake and ruin it, so I made sure to get a ton of good shots with just me and cake first.
(All of these pictures were taken with my iPhone, a tripod and a remote by the way. Nothing professional involved whatsoever.)
And then it came time to smash the cake. When I first started, I went for the back of the cake, which I quickly realized wasn’t the greatest strategy if I wanted photos of the cake being smashed.
Once the cake is broken into, there’s really no choice but to just keep clicking. And you know what? Turns out a bunch of pictures of an adult eating cake aren’t nearly as charming as ones of a small child eating cake for the first time. However, I did manage to get some shots that I absolutely love in between the ones in which I just look like Brucie from Matilda feasting on chocolate cake!
All in all, this was a really fun way to commemorate this big birthday! Definitely think other adults are missing out on this. Why should toddlers have all the fun?
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